PORT TOWNSEND — City officials may lift Port Townsend parking regulations, which are viewed by some as a barrier to new business development downtown.
“We are proposing to waive offstreet parking requirements and allow the market to determine how much parking is necessary in the area,” said city Long Range Planning Director Jeff Randall.
“We recognize that financial institutions will determine how much parking is necessary, and we are encouraging additional development in the city.”
The city Planning Commission discusses proposed amendments to the parking code at 7 p.m. Thursday in the Waterman and Katz Building’s Cedar Room, 181 Quincy St.
City leaders have come under fire since they introduced parking regulations.
“There has been some concern that the Northwest Maritime Center had been singled out as the main beneficiary of this proposal, but the center did not propose this idea,” Randall said.
Parking regulations
City law requires that developers provide a minimum of one parking space per every 400 square feet of business space. The maximum requirement is one space per 200 square feet.
“New development has been effectively discouraged in the commercial historic district due to this arguably inequitable parking requirement,” contract planning consultant Eric Toews wrote in a memo based on a 2003 parking study.
Toews directed his memo to the Port Townsend Planning Commission in October.
“In most of the National Landmark Historic Districts researched, we found no parking requirements for . . . new development,” Toews stated.
Developers, under city law, can also buy their way out of contributing parking space to the city by paying $3,660 per space.
“Since this regulation had been adopted, it had never produced any money,” said Randall.
“And if money were collected the city would have a limited time (six years) to buy a parking space. Even if we got the money, we don’t have the strategy to do anything with it.”